Archive for the 'Concert Reviews' Tag Under 'Soundcheck' Category

Sincere or phony, authentic or affected, believable or laughable – these sorts of reputation-establishing debates hound just about any new rapper. But they become particularly prevalent whenever a fresh white one enters the game, like Southern-steeped sensation Iggy Azalea, the eye-grabber who puzzled as much as impressed during her sold-out show at the Observatory on Wednesday night, a club stop behind major-label debut The New Classic ahead of a larger packed date at the Wiltern on Friday.

Sometimes such qualms get instantly quashed, as with Eminem, whose jarring rhymes resonated as the real deal long before his rough upbringing was made into 8 Mile. At the fake end of the spectrum would be Vanilla Ice (let's just pretend that didn't happen) and somewhere in the middle lands Macklemore, whose grass-roots path to Grammy gold has come paved with charges of cultural theft – that, no matter how sharp or well-intended his lyrics, he’s little more than a pale imitation of street-pure black artists.

Right: What should this have to do with race in the first place? We’re more than a quarter-century away from hip-hop’s mainstream insurgence; newcomers of any color appropriating the genre is no different than the Dirty Heads acting like a legit reggae group. If someone grows up loving Tupac Shakur and Missy Elliott, as Azalea did in the small coastal town of Mullumbimby in eastern Australia, why should it be a surprise, let alone an affront, that such a devotee might one day become an MC herself?

It’s when you get into the meat of her music (or lack thereof) that nagging concerns arise. As her pop/rap hybrid performance in Santa Ana proved, there isn’t enough substance in her material yet to overlook the flaws in her formula.

Violinist-composer Lindsey Stirling is undoubtedly some kind of original. In a 90-minute headlining performance at a sold-out City National Grove of Anaheim Wednesday night, the 27-year-old Santa Ana native, whose new album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard chart, presented her entertaining blend of neo-classical, electronica, Celtic, dubstep and hip-hop – an unlikely hybrid anchored by her astounding instrumental skills.

Not only did Stirling bow away with flawless precision, whether on a classical model or a modern electric version, she also moved like Jagger and sometimes joined two dancers in choreographed routines while fluidly continuing to play.

Stirling is among her generation’s biggest YouTube-launched stars, so naturally her set was a persuasive combination of video technology and live abilities. Considering she’s attracted more than 400 million views of her conceptual clips online, it’s no surprise her O.C. audience spanned from little kids and teens to twentysomethings and baby boomers. All seemed caught up in the atmosphere, which blended the mainstream Vegas atmosphere of, say, Blue Man Group with the feel of an alternative concert experience, like you’d find at Coachella.

"What is up, Anaheim?" the personable, ever-smiling Stirling said to cheers after opening with a few fast-moving tracks. Backed by the longtime duo of drummer Drew Steen and keyboardist Jason Gaviati, this appearance spotlighted plenty of material from just-released sophomore effort Shatter Me as well as her self-titled debut from 2012.

It’s easy – if also unsympathetic and probably inaccurate – to view the iconic Englishman called Morrissey as the instigator of his own unhappiness. That it isn’t any government or vicious meat eaters or his former mates in the Smiths or this cruel world in general that has made him so poetically miserable, but rather his own perpetually aggrieved disposition that sometimes leads to misfortune.

Not that there was anything calamitous about his appearance Saturday night at the Los Angeles Sports Arena, another resolutely strong performance loaded with rarities and new gems, and bolstered just this once by a warmly received set from Tom Jones, wisely tailored to appeal to the purists in Moz’s camp.

Yet why does it so often seem that when the most caustic wit of his generation decides to tour, his outings rarely go smoothly?

Last year he was beset by maladies: He managed to reschedule his memorable Staples Center show with Patti Smith after battling a bleeding ulcer, but then pneumonia struck both his lungs and the rest of the journey was scrubbed. This time, though he’s in finer fettle, skirmishes have arisen since his latest trek began last week; as he has elegantly sung at every stop so far, trouble loves him.

Since 1998, KIIS-FM’s Wango Tango has paraded types for all tastes, and this weekend’s romp was no different. There was a bit of everything blaring from Carson’s StubHub Center on Saturday, from the soft songwriting of Ed Sheeran to the dance music of Tiësto and Calvin Harris, with everything from Shakira to Paramore in between.

Maroon 5, led by People magazine’s latest “Sexiest Man Alive,” Adam Levine, brought fans to their feet, yet while most enjoyed rocking out to the group’s many hits, some were more fascinated by the frontman’s decision to go blond, busily tweeting their reactions. (“I don’t care what color your hair is,” read one, while another countered in hashtags: #questionabledecision, #eyebrowsdontmatch.)

Levine recalled the first time the group played this event, in 2004. “Half of you weren’t even born – so welcome,” he said. “Since then the Internet was invented, and electric cars,” he paused before adding, “and pogs.”

From swooning through “Love Somebody” to “pretend(ing) to know how to rap” on Gym Class Heroes’ “Stereo Hearts,” he was clearly captivating to much of the crowd, although more sensitive ears might have complained about a few explicit lyrics at what some consider a family event.

Maynard James Keenan knows how to throw himself a pretty awesome birthday party.

The singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, actor and adventurous winemaker – best known for fronting metal band Tool as well as supergroup A Perfect Circle and his multifaceted side project Puscifer – turned 50 in April. He decided to celebrate that milestone with close musical friends at a two-night Greek Theatre event this past weekend, dubbed “Cinquanta.”

This was no ordinary show. Keenan devised an “evening with” approach, which during Saturday’s sold-out performance included offerings from Failure, APC and Puscifer that blended seamlessly, artists from each of the acts floating in and out of their respective songs and creating myriad collaborations.

Fellow Los Angeles alt-rock outfit Failure – one of Keenan’s favorites and his longtime friends, reunited after 16 years – opened with “The Nurse Who Loved Me,” a track that A Perfect Circle covered on its 2003 album Thirteenth Step. Mixing and matching began immediately as Keenan, clad in a slick blue suit, joined for a verse, along with APC guitarist Billy Howerdel and stunning Puscifer vocalist Carina Round.

Who is William Onyeabor? That’s the question posed on the cover of a remarkable retrospective of the elusive Nigerian’s work, reissued last fall to widespread acclaim by David Byrne’s Luaka Bop imprint. The short answer, however – and the reason the album is titled that way – is that no one really knows.

Not that he’s in hiding: The 6-foot-5 68-year-old remains high chief of his Igbo village in Enugu, the capital of what was briefly Biafra in the late ’60s. But after his 1985 collection Anything You Sow, the last in a trailblazing run of synth-driven excursions begun in the late ’70s amid civil war and famine, Onyeabor turned his back on the infectious, commentary-charged grooves he had made up to that point, became a born-again Christian and has never discussed his past in any way that could confirm or deny the mythology surrounding his artistry.

He’s believed to have studied cinematography in Moscow (which maybe resulted in released films at home) and at some point may have earned a law degree. But it’s at least known that he built his own record-pressing plant, from which he issued a series of forward-leaning works that fused electronic textures and drum-machine blips to the highlife feel of Fela Kuti, Nigeria’s godfather of Afrobeat. Yet, as producers of his first official compilation point out, “The few bits of conflicting information we have gleaned from others has brought us to the realization that all the information that is out there, and there isn’t a lot, is suspect.”

What endures, more intriguingly than his enigmatic tale, is his music – as funky and epic and outspoken as Fela’s, fueled by the same sort of slippery guitar riffs and rhythmic complexity that would redefine Talking Heads circa 1980, but lacquered in a synthetic sheen as advanced as Giorgio Moroder’s disco tracks from that era.

Tuesday night at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, it wasn’t hard to see why Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero have achieved international celebrity for instrumental music. It’s their personality.

The pair from Mexico City, known professionally as simply Rodrigo y Gabriela, are undeniably incredible musicians, and a major contingent turned out mainly to see them shred. A big part of their success, including five studio albums that have sold more than a million copies worldwide, is how uncommonly virtuosic they are on classical, nylon-stringed acoustic guitars.

Rodrigo runs through riffs and scales with the speed and fluidity of Steve Vai, palm-muting his plucked notes to give them extra muscle. Gabriela, meanwhile, has a unique strumming technique that’s partly percussive, partly flamenco flourish, and mostly involves ax-slapping like her wrist were made of jelly. It’s a singular style that’s also deeply rooted in tradition, and it sounds beautiful.

But the personality you pick up when watching Rodrigo y Gabriela live is where the success of the project is most indebted. It was while performing on the streets in Ireland that they were discovered, and though their albums can sometimes provide merely pleasant background noise for tasteful gatherings, seeing the childhood friends deliver them onstage is what makes their music come alive.

You could tell right away something was different. Caution, not confidence, was all over her face, even as her snarl yielded to smiles. Perhaps she’s still casting out residual insecurity, no matter how much her latest work nakedly addresses and boldly overcomes such self-doubt.

Whatever the case, Merrill Garbus, the magnetic new maverick who does business as tUnE-yArDs, delivered a noticeably reserved performance Monday night, despite her colorful appearance: extra glitter in her face paint, shimmering turquoise-and-black dress, satiny angel’s wings with frayed feathers that encircled her head like a crown in a ’50s sci-fi B-movie.

Bolstered by similarly costumed support from two backing vocalists as well as drummer Dani Markham and bassist Nate Brennan – her chief collaborator, romantic partner and reason why she left New England for Oakland – this was Garbus’ first headlining show behind another remarkable album like only St. Vincent and M.I.A. have made century, the just-released Nikki Nack. She and her group return June 5 for what ought to be a livelier encounter at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.

“We have been playing opening gigs lately for a band called the Arcade Fire,” she explained to a small, tightly packed audience inside the steamy Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Her hesitant, irony-free mention of those indie rock stars made it seem as though she thought no one had ever heard of them. It was an awkwardly cute aside from someone so otherwise commanding, so it wasn’t surprising to hear her add that “it feels totally strange to have people in a room who came here to see us.”

If you’re only aware of Donald Glover as the recently exited Troy Barnes from NBC’s cult show Community, then you wouldn’t know Childish Gambino from Kid Cudi and probably think the 30-year-old must be a scion of the man who was Murtaugh. But if you’re serious about hip-hop, you’ve likely come to some conclusion about the merits of Gambino, the alter ego of a comedian who got his start writing jokes for The Daily Show and 30 Rock.

That opinion is apt to be negative; rarely has a rapper of such immense skill and evident vision incurred so much hostility, principally because he didn’t rise up from an impoverished upbringing, isn’t street in the slightest and dared to break into the game through interloper means. Some hard-core hip-hop heads simply won’t look past the fact that his music career began as a parodic lark, his put-on moniker derived from an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator, nor will they accept him as anything beyond a copycat.

Yet in the past few years, with his startling official debut Camp in 2011 and last December’s more psychologically complex follow-up, Because the Internet, Gambino has struck back at the derision by developing into one of the genre’s most intriguing innovators, a nerdy but intense antihero for the millennial generation with a keen understanding of the manipulative powers of social media. His latest effort, a concept album that blurs the lines between believable autobiography and character-driven commentary, is both a vivid snapshot of Web life and a scathing indictment of the personality deficiencies and mental isolation that trolling can cause.

More crucial to his increasing renown, however, are his live sets, which have become galvanizing experiences. Even if his albums (for boutique label Glassnote Records) don’t cohere enough to impress critics the way they do his swelling legion of followers, there’s no denying his abilities on stage. Haters might want to hush up if they haven’t seen his latest show, a conceptually stunning, diabolically explosive performance that drew an eruptive response out of a capacity crowd Saturday night at the Shrine Auditorium. It’s a bold statement that demands Gambino be taken seriously as a new force.

Ask a dozen Angelenos to identify where the city’s east side begins and you’ll get a dozen different answers: the L.A. River (historically correct), downtown (traditional), Alvarado, Hyperion, Western, La Brea; some will even claim La Cienega. But Saturday night, when Los Lobos headlined the Greek Theatre for the group’s third annual Cinco de Mayo festival, there was no doubt that East L.A. began on Vermont Avenue.

It’s hard to think of another band that embodies Los Angeles quite like Los Lobos. Moving from an acoustic group playing backyard parties to sharing stages with X, the Blasters, PiL and Dwight Yoakam – and becoming one of the country’s most surprising and experimental bands, surviving tragedies with dignity and garnering accolades year after year – Los Lobos feels like part of the city’s mosaic.

The ethnically diverse, near capacity crowd came ready to party and was lubricated by plenty of Modelo tall boys plus energetic sets by Mariachi El Bronx (local punk outfit, the Bronx’s traditional incarnation, boisterous and engaging) and Ozomotli, still a first-class party band after nearly two decades, willing to indulge any style to get people moving: cumbia, conjunto, hip-hop, dub, frat-rock, even a touch of “Hava Nagila.”

Yet, for Los Lobos, this year’s show served a double purpose: The group also is celebrating its 40th anniversary, a milestone made even more impressive given that the original lineup is intact.